IFYBRIAN

Some newer laptops recently arrived  at the hands of consumers with Amazon Alexa integration onboard, but now anyone is free to enjoy the same experience on a regular Windows PC. Amazon revealed that its Alexa app is now available as a download on all Windows 10 PCs running the April 2018 Update, allowing for the conveniences of yet another digital assistant. Similar to what is already available with Microsoft’s Cortana, the new Alexa Windows 10 app allows anyone to tap into the power of the virtual assistant to check calendars, play music, and fetch other important information. Anyone running the app can also use their PC to control certain Alexa smart home compatible products including lamps, fans, speakers, and lights. No other extra hardware is required and the download process involves a simple visit to the Microsoft Store on Windows. “No matter where you are, with Alexa for your PC you can always talk to Alexa. Across the street or across the country, Alexa on your PC means A...

Google's Project Treble was created to help fight Android's dirty f-word (fragmentation), by making the update process easier and faster for OEMs. Separating vendor-specific code like SoC drivers out from Android itself was meant to help when it came to OS updates and the work required to push them out. Now Google is working on increasing just how modular Android can be with something called APEX. Details for APEX were published by well-known Rootless (Pixel) Launcher developer AmirZ on Reddit after he compiled together a bit of research on the subject. APEX was first spotted last year by Lawnchair developer Till as its own repository at AOSP (the Android Open Source Project). At a technical level, APEX has been compared to Magisk, which works by mounting folders into the system partition at boot, rather than modifying the system partition directly (which is detectable). APEX appears to extend that same functionality over into core Android packages, separating out things like t...

Following walkouts at Google offices around the world a week ago, CEO Sundar Pichai announced a series of changes to sexual harassment policy at the company today. A blog post provides a flyover of the policy changes, the details of which are in an internal Google announcement only viewable to employees (if anyone wants to share it with us completely anonymously, feel free). Those walking out demanded a series of five changes at Google, and it appears they're getting at least one of them, and arguably the one that was seen as most controversial. That change comes in an end to the requirement that internal sexual harassment claims be forced into arbitration (i.e., employees were not allowed to sue their workplace harassers). While Google maintains that the company's arbitration system was never meant to shield harassers from the public eye, arbitration can by its nature have that effect. The proceedings are closed-door, and confidentiality is often encouraged in such situations ...

If you’re using the Chrome browser, Google will begin to warn you if a website is trying to bill you without being upfront about the terms. The feature will begin to arrive in December with the launch of Chrome 71, with Google flagging you when a website has unclear mobile billing practices. This means that if you’re shopping on a reputable retailer, like Amazon.com  or your favorite department store, from your Chrome browser on your smartphone or tablet, you likely won’t get any annoying flags. However, if you’re visiting a site that tries to bill your phone number for a subscription disguised as a one-off fee, Google will alert you in its efforts to help make ecommerce clearer and safer for all consumers. Google claims that the new feature is designed to deter websites merely asking for phone numbers from web visitors to their page, and later tacking on a charge — without the user’s knowledge or consent — to the mobile carrier associated with the phone number in a practice known ...

In the name of transparency, Google has released another Android security report (officially, the Android Ecosystem Security Transparency Report) that details many aspects of exactly how secure different parts of the Android ecosystem are, and how often they're being exploited in the real world. The goal is of course to show that Android is very secure purely based on the numbers Google collects — and it has no qualms about showing off its data, because it looks really good. We hear a lot about Android vulnerabilities that affect "millions" or "billions" of devices, but Google hits us with the hard numbers that show the reality of the situation: very few phones have so-called PHAs (potentially harmful applications) installed, and even fewer are actively exploited by those PHAs. In the first year of the report, 2014, the number of Android phones with PHAs sat at 1%, but that number has declined significantly — now in 2018, just 0.08%  of Android phones installing...

Social trading platform eToro has finally begun rolling out its cryptocurrency wallet to Android and iOS users. The wallet, which promises an intuitive customer interface and enhanced security, is now available on Google Play and Apple’s App Store. At launch, the app will support only Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin; however, eToro plans to add support for more cryptocurrencies in the near future. There is a little catch though: to ensure a smooth customer experience, eToro is releasing the wallet only to select users and countries. So if you can’t find the app on Google Play or the App Store, you might have to wait a little longer. “We believe that crypto and the blockchain technology that underpins it will have a huge impact on global finance,” said Yoni Assia, CEO of eToro. “Blockchain has the potential to revolutionise finance and we believe that we will see the greatest transfer of wealth ever onto the blockchain.” “We believe that in the future all assets will be to...

Samsung is finally making good on its promise to debut a foldable phone. Well, sort of. At the Samsung Developer Conference today, Samsung’s Justin Denison got on stage to announce the Infinity Flex display. This flexible OLED technology will launch in 2019 as part of a still unnamed phone. Denison had the phone on stage, but we only got to see if for a precious few seconds. Almost every phone today uses a glass cover on top of the display. While glass can crack if you drop your phone, it’s very difficult to scratch, and its rigidity adds strength to the device frame. Glass doesn’t bend, though. Samsung created a new composite polymer to replace the glass on top of the Infinity Flex display. We didn’t get any specifics, but Denison says it’s “both flexible and tough.” OLED panels are fabricated on flexible substrates, so it’s been possible to make a foldable display for years as long as you only wanted to fold it a few times. More than that and the adhesive that holds the display layer...

One of the differences between the iPhone XS and XR is the latter’s lack of support for 3D Touch, the feature that lets you press slightly harder on your phone’s screen to access certain shortcuts or “peek” at links. However, with iOS 12.1.1, 9to5Mac reports that Haptic Touch will offer one of those 3D Touch features — expanding your notifications — to iPhone XR owners. Haptic Touch was a feature introduced with the iPhone XR that lets you get some of the same functionality as 3D Touch without having the specialized hardware. For now, it’s largely limited to launching the camera or flashlight on the lock screen or adjusting Control Center settings. To access it, long-press on your phone’s screen, and a bit of haptic feedback will confirm your selection. It takes slightly longer than a hard press, but its existence seems to underscore just how useless 3D Touch has become. Apple previously told The Verge that it planned to expand Haptic Touch’s capabilities, and letting users expand noti...

Now that Apple’s full fall hardware lineup is officially available, the company has announced a slew of updates for its video creation and productivity apps. First, a new iMovie update will let users connect an external display to an iPad or iPhone, which allows screen mirroring or creating a full-screen preview of what you’re editing. (Full-screen previews require an iPhone 7 or newer, sixth-generation iPad or newer, or a 2017 iPad Pro or newer.) In addition, there’s also support for uncompressed 4K video output on the third-generation 11-inch iPad Pro and 12.9-inch iPad Pro. For iMovie on desktop, there’s now a new export option called “Prepare for Facebook.” This will export a Facebook-compatible video file that you can then manually upload to Facebook without issue. Clips, Apple’s app for making videos using an iPhone or iPad, has added six new Selfie Scenes — 360-degree backgrounds — as well as filters, stickers, and 17 additional soundtracks that will automatically match the leng...

Smartphones have all looked similar for the last decade, but we may be on the verge of another major shift. At the Android Developer Summit today, the company announced native platform support for a class of devices it calls “foldables.” As you can probably guess, that means devices with foldable displays. Google also confirms that news of a Samsung foldable is coming soon. We’ve seen demos of foldable phones at trade shows for years, but none of them have been real products. The hardware has been a barrier, of course. While OLEDs are flexible, they don’t necessarily take kindly to being folded several thousand times. We’re nearing the point that a foldable display could physically work, but the software needs to catch up. Look at the recent FlexPai announcement (pictured, top) — it’s a flexible phone/tablet you can (allegedly) purchase, but the Android software shown at the demo was an incredible mess. It was completely custom, and apps don’t know how to operate on a device with a fol...